Technical contradictions

An example of a technical contradiction is provided by an automobile airbag, which needs to deploy very fast in order to protect the occupant (good) but the faster it deploys the more likely it is to kill small people (bad). An example of a physical contradiction is provided by coffee that should be hot to be enjoyable but cold enough not to scald the customer. 

It s easier to pinpoint and eliminate any physical or technical contradictions. See Structured Abstraction (Technique 23) and Separation Principles (Technique 24) for more. 

As a result, of applying movement to the PT statements, you should have a list of innovative ideas to explore further. Your ideas may be ready-made solutions. More than likely, however. Provocation and Movement may have pushed you to the boundaries of what is possible. In this case, you may need to leverage Structured Abstraction (Technique 23) or Separation Principles (Technique 24) to help you overcome any physical or technical contradictions inherent in your ideas. 

How do you identify a technical contradiction More often than not, technical contradictions are evident and well known within any field of endeavor or technology. Engineers and technicians familiar with a system understand the conflicting dynamics that give rise to technical contradictions. 

To identify and characterize a technical contradiction, think in terms of two related variables, or parts of a system or process. When you improve one of the variables, say increase the speed of a car, that action causes another... 

The key to the 40 inventive principles is that they were derived from an extensive analysis and categorization of more than 2 million patented innovations. In each and every case, the patented innovations employed at least one of the 40 inventive principles to solve some identified technical contradiction. This is why some call these 40 principles the genetic code of innovation, and why TRIZ experts will tell you that someone else in another held at another time has already solved your contradiction. 

Now comes the moment of truth—actually applying the inventive principle to solve your technical contradiction. This requires good analogical thinking skills because you have to consider the identified inventive principles as a guide for coming up with a specific solution to your original specific problem, or technical contradiction. 

This technique comes in handy when the innovation opportunity is (a) well-defined and (b) contains at least one technical contradiction (see Structured Abstraction, Technique 23) or physical contradiction (see Separation Principles, Technique 24). Unless you re well-versed in the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ), you will need special assistance from an expert to properly apply this technique. Several U.S. and U.K. organizations can help (see resource list at the end of this technique). 

What is a contradiction matrix This is shown in Fig. 7.9 (a portion of the matrix the complete matrix is shown in the appendix). TRIZ founder Genrich S. Altshuller, while going through 40,000 most inventive patents, found that there are around 1250 technical contradictions which he was able to assemble in a 39 x 39 matrix called the contradiction matrix. To resolve these contradictions, again through the 40,000 most inventive patents back in 1950, Altshuller invented 40 inventive prin-... 

Inventive principles for technical contradiction elimination are used to eliminate problems represented in terms of technical contradictions. Inventive principles describe either solution pattern which can be applied to resolve the contradiction or a direction in which a problem has to be solved. There are 40 inventive principles for resolving technical contradictions available in TRIZ... 

In this book, only classical TRIZ is presented, that is, TRIZ as it was developed mainly by Altshuller during the period called classical TRIZ (1945-1985). Classical TRIZ may be called the method of technical contradictions, although this name oversimplifies classical TRIZ and reduces it to just a method while it is in fact a knowledge system of which the method is only a part. 

A technical contradiction is a pair of technical (or qualitative) characteristics of an engineering system, whereby when one of them is improved, the other is worsened. 

A technical contradiction may be also interpreted as a technical trade-off, for example, a trade-off between the safety and the maximum speed of a car. A physical contradiction may be understood as a contradictory requirement, for example, a temperature that is simultaneously >25 F° and < 14 F°. 

Solving it requires the elimination of at least one technical contradiction. 

Studying inventions led Altshuller to two interesting observations. First, the same contradictions could be found in many inventive problems and in various areas of engineering that is, they were universal, not domain specific. Second, inventors, in no matter what domain, were using the same ways to eliminate the same technical contradictions. These two observations combined led Altshuller to the conclusion that both contradictions and the heuristics for their elimination (called later Inventive Principles ) are entirely domain independent. Next, he had a dream If we knew all Inventive Principles, then the life of inventors would be so much easier. He was a man of action and made finding inventive principles one of his top research priorities. Soon, after only several years, he had a collection of 40 inventive principles, which can be described as a group thus ... 

Inventive Principles is a collection of 40 heuristics that are necessary and sufficient to eliminate all possible technical contradictions in inventive conceptual designing. 

The contradiction table is most likely the first inventive tool developed deliberately for general engineering use. Its function is to help inventors to eliminate all possible technical contradictions as identified by Altshuller. 

For any technical contradiction, identified by two conflicting characteristics of an engineering system, the table provides numbers of all inventive principles that could be potentially used to eliminate this contradiction. 

For example, when a technical contradiction between the volume of a moving object and its speed is considered, the table offers four numbers of inventive principles, namely 29,4,38, and 34. They are listed in order of their diminishing potential usefulness. These numbers identify such inventive principles as... 

The contradiction table can be best explained from the knowledge perspective. In this case, the contradiction table can be interpreted as a certain universal body of inventive knowledge. It is in the form of a collection of decision rules related to all the technical contradictions associated with 39 identified features of an engineering system. Each decision rule has two conditions and at least one recommended decision. Each condition is related to a different feature of an engineering system from a given contradiction. The decision is the recommended action—or more precisely the inventive principle or simply principles—that should be used in this case. When several principles are available, they are listed in the order of diminishing potential usefulness. In the case of the specific contradiction discussed earlier, the decision rule is as follows ... 

The inventive problem is a conceptual designing problem, the solution for which requires the elimination of at least one technical contradiction and results in a potentially patentable design concept. 

Each technical contradiction can be transformed into the related physical contradiction. 

All technical contradictions may be expressed in terms of basic features. 

Each technical contradiction may be eliminated using at least one inventive principle. 

In the second step we need to identify a technical contradiction involving the basic features that have been distinguished. In our simple example, this is easy We have a technical contradiction between strength and weight. ... 

In the previous stage, problem formulation, both the problem s basic features and the technical contradiction have been identified. Now, they will be used to find inventive patterns, which might help to eliminate the identified technical contradiction. 

Interpretation of technical contradictions Sometimes understanding a technical contradiction in a specific domain is difficult, if not... 

When body armor is considered, no matter if it is for humans or animals, its ultimate objective is clear maximize survivability. This objective may be also reformulated as a technical contradiction in accordance with TRIZ (see Chapter 9) maximize body protection and maximize mobility. Since the same force (maximization of survivability) drives the evolution of both kinds of body armor, knowledge about animal body armor evolution is relevant to designing human body armor. It may be an oversimplification of a... 

Analysis of Contradictions G.S. Altshuller (1984) distinguished between the following three types of contradictions administrative contradictions, technical contradictions, and physical contradictions. The two last types are of interest in this definition. 

Technical contradictions An action is simultaneously useful and harmful or it causes Useful Function(s) and Harmful Function(s). 

Physical contradictions as well as technical contradictions are usually crystallized during the problem analysis. Sometimes technical contradictions can be obtained by analysis techniques such as in the Root Cause Analysis framework or Goldratt s Theory of Constraints (Wilson et al. 1993). 

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